After Uvalde, Irrelevant Gun Control Proposals

The horrifying May 24 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two adults, happened just 10 days after a gunman murdered 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

- By Jacob Sullum

Both crimes predictably prompted politicians to reiterate their demands for the gun control laws they already supported, even though the policies they pushed are fundamentally ill-suited to prevent mass shootings.

"In New York," former Gov. Andrew Cuomo bragged after the Buffalo attack, "we passed the best [gun control] laws in the nation." Although those laws manifestly did not deter the Buffalo shooter, Cuomo thinks the answer is more of the same.

Cuomo mentioned a federal "assault weapon" ban, and other politicians responded to the Buffalo massacre by recommending expanded background checks for gun buyers. After the Uvalde shooting, President Joe Biden repeated his longstanding support for banning "assault weapons," and Senate Democrats mulled an "accountability vote" on a bill that would expand the federal background-check requirement to cover private transactions as well as sales by federally licensed dealers.

As Democrats framed the issue, anyone who resists those measures is manifestly untroubled by the murder of grocery shoppers s and schoolchildren. "When in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?" Biden asked during an emotional speech. "When in God's name are we going to do what we know needs to be done?"

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested that callous indifference was the only plausible explanation for opposition to his gun control agenda. "Republicans don't pretend that they support sensible gun safety legislation," he told reporters. "They don't pretend that they want to keep guns out of the hands of those who might use weapons to shoot concertgoers or movie watchers or worshippers or shoppers or children."